


Whimsical

by angelic_ly



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Gender-neutral Reader, Romance if you squint, this is mostly just a genfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelic_ly/pseuds/angelic_ly
Summary: “Noctis,” you say his name in that strange way you love saying his name, “Describe me in one word.”Without missing a beat, “Weird.”You laugh, but punch him on the shoulder and tell him to take this seriously. He does, and he thinks on your request for, maybe too long for your liking. You look ready to deflate, but then he’s found his word.“Whimsical.” He watches you absorb this newfound information. “In one word, you’re whimsical.”





	Whimsical

The first time that Noctis sees you, he has to do a double take. You’re up there, on the railing -- not a particularly dangerous railing, not on stairs or in an elevated location -- but you’re up there, and you’re doing a handstand. 

You’re facing away from him, so only your back bears witness to his stare. He watches you teeter slightly and worry spikes in his chest, but then you steady yourself. Noctis barely keeps his sigh of relief in his lungs while you begin your descent. Your arms bend in a way that he’s sure is painful, at the very least uncomfortable, and then your feet are on the ground. 

He makes eye contact with you, and he’s startled by the smile that lights up your face.

“Hey there, stranger.” You greet him as if he’s an old friend of yours and hop over the railing instead of just going around it. You jut out your hand and introduce yourself. While he shakes it, he racks his brain for any memories of your name or your face, and draws up a blank. 

He almost misses you asking for his name, and then it hits him with a shock: you don’t know who he is. 

“Noctis,” without his family name, and he curses how breathless his voice sounds. Maybe it’s because he’s still in shock from seeing you do a handstand on the railing he normally sees his classmates skateboarding on.

You tell him that his name is funny, and he gives a mild scoff in return. There’s some relief in your ignorance, he thinks, since he’s recognized by just about everyone else he sees. But you -- not you.

“Well, Noctis,” you say his name with a funny lilt in your voice that reminds him of stuffy councilmen, “I’ll see you around.” You grab his hand and lay something in his palm, then close his fingers around it and stride off, picking up your backpack as you pass the end of the railing.

He stares after you, eyebrows furrowed and confusion clearly written on his face, as you depart without looking back. Slowly, he gathers his wits enough to register that you’d put something in his hand. He unfurls his fingers, and it’s a coupon for a restaurant he doesn’t like. 

He briefly considers tossing it, but instead pockets it with a shake of his head. You cross his mind again when he’s back home puzzling over homework, and the coupon crinkles whenever he moves.

  
  


The next time he sees you, you’re again high up, this time sitting in a tree at the local park. Again he stares, wondering if this is how all of your interactions will start. You’re facing him this time, though, so you see him. 

Eye contact. You smile.

He doesn’t get to say anything, really, just lifts his hand in greeting as you wave at him. Backpack and all, you hop from the tree, and Noctis almost expects your ankles to shatter from the height and the impact. They don’t, and you approach him normally -- as normally as you can approach him, that is. 

“Do you remember me?” you ask once you’re close enough. 

He has the decency to feel a bit sheepish. “Your face, yes.” He answers, and he wonders how he’s so bad at this, then abruptly remembers that Ignis remembers the names, not him.

You pout and rummage around in your bag. “That’s a shame, Noctis.” You enunciate his name with a flair, exasperation tied neatly into your words and your tone. Your hand emerges with a felt-tipped marker, and you uncap it. Noctis feels worry spike, but he calms because -- what’s the worst you can do to him with a marker? Draw a dick on him?

When you hold your hand out for something to write on and he realizes he has absolutely nothing that he can spare, he offers you his arm instead. You make a funny face but take it and start drawing on the inside of his forearm. You do not, in fact, draw a dick on him, but your name. 

At least, he assumes it’s yours. He hopes that it’s yours. 

It’s written at a poor angle for him to read, an admitted oversight on your part, and he has to turn his arm awkwardly to make the letters out properly. He reads the name out to you, and you nod in confirmation. 

“My name.” And relief washes over him as you continue speaking. “You remembered my face. Let’s take it one step further, hm?”

There’s really no other appropriate reaction than nodding, so he does just that, and you smile at him again, stuffing your marker back into your backpack. You wave and depart, leaving him there to watch your retreating form and puzzle over that interaction.

At least your name sat somewhere he could easily hide it.

  
  


It’s quite a few more meetings, and he catches himself thinking of you as a friend and looking forward to seeing you. The thought comes out of nowhere, but he doesn’t mind it. Noctis figures that the two of you have talked enough and shared enough experiences that he can consider you a friend, even if he hasn’t been completely honest with you.

Somehow, after all this time, you still don’t know who he is. He doesn’t know if he loves or hates how poorly informed you are. He decides that he just likes it, the same way he likes you. 

This time, you’re walking together aimlessly -- well, he’s walking, and you’re half-heartedly skipping by his side. You always greet him by name and you expect him to do the same; when asked why, you just said that it reinforces his name in your head and vice versa. He couldn’t argue with that, so he lets it be, and greets you by name.

You tap his shoulder to get his attention even though his attention is already mostly on you. An inquisitive look forms in your eyes. “Do you have a Place, Noctis?”

“Um,” He raises an eyebrow. “To live? Yeah.” 

You roll your eyes and lightly thump him on the shoulder. “No, that’s not what I mean.” You wave your hand in some gesture that he feels like he should understand, but doesn’t. “Do you have a Place? Somewhere you go when you just need to think or be alone?”

So like a secret spot, then. He considers it a pretty weird question, but the expectant look in your eyes makes him rack his brain for a moment. His bedroom, strangely, doesn’t seem secretive or personal enough to suffice. “I don’t.” He says softly, and suddenly he’s just as disappointed in himself as you are.

You hum and ponder, your face turned into an expression that he can’t quite name, but wouldn’t call frowning. You grab his hand. “I’ll take you to my Place, then. It’ll help you pick out your own.”

He splutters a non-response, and you just continue pulling him along the sidewalk. Your suggestion has completely thrown him. This feels too intimate for him to back out of, but so intimate that he feels like he shouldn’t intrude. He’s not sure what to do, so he lets you continue.

The roads and the shops nearby start to look entirely too familiar, and he realizes that you’re heading towards the Citadel. Worry and anxiety spike in his chest and run down his spine. He desperately tries to keep his voice steady as he asks where you’re taking him. Your response dodges the question at best, but it somehow reassures him anyways. 

He’s yet to be discovered, he thinks. He doesn’t want to ruin this.

You stop by a particularly large hedge and drop your things, kicking them under the branches. You stare at him expectantly, and he does the same. “We’ll have to travel lightly for this.” You say, and while Noctis understands that you mean to sneak him into somewhere, it doesn’t click until the actual sneaking is happening.

The hallways are familiar. Still, with how he’s slinking from shadow to shadow behind you and listening for patrols, he feels like a stranger in his own home. His mind whirls at top speeds while he follows you, not paying too much mind to the path you’re taking. He’s somewhere between thankful that this sneaking is so easy and a little bit worried and considering asking his father to ramp up security. This shouldn’t be as easy as it is, but he’s glad it is.

Sunlight startles him as it suddenly hits him in the face, throwing his sight momentarily and leaving him somewhat disoriented as you drag him along. Still, he already knows where you’ve taken him. 

You bring him along the very same hidden footpath that he used to walk during his games of hide and seek with Ignis. You veer off and then he’s listening to the ground crunch underneath his shoes as he’s guided into less tended-to parts of the Royal Gardens.

You tug him through a crude doorway that he’s sure you fashioned yourself with a pair of safety scissors, draw him into a clearing, and sit down alongside him in the center.

Noctis recognizes this clearing as the very same one that he first met Iris in, even if it is a bit overgrown in this year. Before he can sink into nostalgia, you speak.

“This is my Place.” You gesture grandly around you, a serene smile on your face. “Cool, right?”

He looks around at the half-wilted flowers, the vines that wind around anything able to support them, the thornbush in the corner, and the surprising amount of weeds. Noctis inhales deeply, and he feels at ease. “Yeah, pretty cool.”

  
  


He’s decided that his Place is going to be not the roof of his apartment building, but the roof of the almost-abandoned building a few doors down. The building is in good condition, the landlord is trying desperately to sell it, but refuses to lower the price. Noctis knows he could buy it if he really wanted it, but he doesn’t feel like explaining himself.

So you’re sitting next to him on the rooftop of this abandoned building, the wind whipping around you and trying to carry your belongings, and his, somewhere far away. He turns you around and points straight ahead -- there, in the distance, this building is perfectly aligned with the Citadel so the spires are symmetrical. You clap your hands and grin.

You’re impressed. Noctis is happy. 

The conversation has lapsed into a comfortable silence for the time being. Noctis is focusing on the feel of the wind blowing through his hair, so he doesn’t notice you stand until you move to his side and the wind stops. 

“Noctis,” you say his name in that strange way you love saying his name, “Describe me in one word.”

Without missing a beat, “Weird.”

You laugh, but punch him on the shoulder and tell him to take this seriously. He does, and he thinks on your request for, maybe too long for your liking. You look ready to deflate, but then he’s found his word. 

“Whimsical.” He watches you absorb this newfound information. “In one word, you’re whimsical.”

You make the noise that he now recognizes as your thinking noise. “So, in your mind,” you start, waving your hands in another gesture that he feels like he should understand, but doesn’t, “I’m like this good side of strange, nicely crazy, fanciful person?”

He nods. You smile.

“Keep me like that. It’ll be the image I claim and keep. The perfect picture.”

Noctis agrees to do just that, and it widens your smile into a grin. It falls as you think again, and he wonders what’s going through that mind of yours.

“Effulgent.” You say, and he tilts his head in confusion. “Your word, hand picked by me. Effulgent.”

Even when Noctis runs through his mental bank twice, he can’t seem to come up with a definition for that word in particular. Years of vocabulary lessons wasted. You tell him to look up the meaning when he asks for it, and he sighs, because of course that would be your response.

It’s stuck in his brain enough that he does indeed look up the word once he gets back home. His findings have him smiling at his computer screen.

Effulgent.  _ Adjective _ . Shining brightly, radiant; (of a person or their expression) emanating joy or goodness.

  
  


Noctis realizes that he’s dreading the inevitable day that you find out who he really is.

You’re sneaking him to your Place again, even if he insisted that he’d rather go to his own. He doesn’t want to risk getting caught, he says, but you reassure him with a wave of the hand that he finally understands as your mind already being made up. 

While you’re dragging him through the halls, he absently thinks that being able to warp would make this a lot easier. He also absently tugs you back in a different direction, down the shortcut he always used to take when he was little. There’s always been fewer patrols and it’s faster than the way you take.

It’s purely by muscle memory, so he doesn’t think twice about it until you bring it up.

You’re sitting across from him and toying with dying flower petals. “I didn’t know you knew a shortcut, Noctis. You wander around here a lot? Come here without me?” The words are plainly accusatory, but your tone is anything but, and he wonders how you do it.

Noctis still can’t bring himself to tell the truth. “Something like that, I guess.” He dodges the question with an ease that he learned from you. It’s not wholly a lie, he reassures himself. He’s kinda telling the truth. He’s just leaving out the biggest piece. 

His answer doesn’t faze you. You perk up, eyes alight, and he wonders what he’s gotten himself into through omission. “You know any other cool spots around here? You ever been on the roof?”

He lies. You ramble that you should sneak up to see the view, and panic sprints up his spine and sends goosebumps rising across his skin. You’ll get caught, he knows. If he lets you go up there, with or without him, you’ll get caught, and everything will be ruined.

You know him, but you don’t. He thinks it’s something he wants. Preservation is what he wants. Everything in his life is changing with the passing time, and this is something he wants to keep. 

Noctis tells you this much, that he doesn’t want to end up jailed for trespassing -- though such a punishment is far above the crime -- and you brush off his worries. He rushes that he’s afraid of heights, and blatant lie that it is, it makes you laugh. He’s running out of options, of time. 

You raise your hand, the beginnings of that motion he’s come to love and hate, and he halts your wrist before you can complete it. Maybe this will deter you. He hopes.

Eye contact. You don’t smile.

“Trust me. We shouldn’t go.”

Silence. You stare. Heavy, heavy silence. 

He almost breaks it, but you relent. Sagging shoulders, a small smile, a nod.

“Okay.”

  
  


For a while, he’ll consider this his last memory of you.

He’s sitting with you in the local park. He thinks this is the same tree from the time he learned your name, but he’s not sure. Today, he joins you in the branches instead of watching from below.

You’re perched lightly, swinging your legs. His stance is precarious at best. Noctis draws on your confidence that he won’t fall.

He’s unhappy with the terms of the treaty. He can’t change anything. He’s supposed to leave in a few days to take this astronomical next step in his life. He’s not ready.

He tells you the news under the guise of a family visit and leaves out the details. In your mind, his parents decided he needed to bond more with his relatives, so they’re sending him away for a few months. It’s a candied shell of the truth, but it’s all he can say.

Really, it’s all he wants to say.

Your face scrunches up, and he momentarily worries that his lie was poorer than he thought, that you’re about to demand the truth in such a way that he can’t possibly refuse. Instead, you express distaste at his impending absence and your impending boredom, and he laughs in relief.

He listens to you talk, and he wonders if you’ve put the coincidental puzzle pieces together. If you have, he wonders if he’s so bad at reading you that he can’t tell. It’s never been his strong suit -- that’s more Ignis than him. He just stays quiet and hopes for the best.

The time for that is ending, he knows.

It’s clumsy curiosity when he brings up the treaty. You answer his question with a question. He’s never been to your home, but he’s sure it’s on the underside of a rock.

You know of it, but nothing of the details. Talking about himself in such a way is foreign on his tongue, and he almost slips up more than once. He wonders if the puzzle pieces are now connecting in your head. If they are, he wonders if he’ll know. 

It’s an honest statement when he tells you that he hasn’t done much packing. He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t tell you that. He lets himself down from the tree, no shattered ankles, and says that he really does need to start packing. A few days isn’t much time, he knows. He doesn’t feel ready. He won’t tell you or anyone that.

He knows that you’re joking when you tell him that you wish you could come with him. He wants you to. He doesn’t tell you that to save him from potential ridicule. You call for his attention again before he can take a step or turn. It doesn’t surprise him that you’re not from the city, that you have family outside the Wall. It does surprise him when you say you may be heading out to visit them soon, too. 

You hope to see him around. He hopes so too. He tells you that. He starts to leave, but he turns around again and raises a hand to wave.

Eye contact. You smile. Realization has not yet shone in your eyes. The puzzle is still scattered. 

Noctis smiles.

  
  


Insomnia is gone, as well as his father. Abruptly, in the middle of the swirl of chaos, you come to mind. Noctis wonders if you’re gone, too. 

He hopes you’re not. He desperately wants to tell you that.

Everyone is too preoccupied with making their own phone calls that they don’t notice -- or don’t comment on -- Noctis making his. His heart aches as he finds you not under your name, but under the nickname you made him save you as. It’s as far away in the alphabet as it can be. You say that it adds to your image.

After he gets your voicemail three times, he gives up without leaving a message. 

No one questions him when they see him rummaging frantically through his clothes. He knows he packed the jacket from the day he met you. The Ignis within him hopes that it’s been washed since then, but the sentimentality in him wishes that it hasn’t.

Some number of articles and zippers later, the coupon crinkles in his hand again.

It’s the last physical thing he has left of you. Your Place is gone, and so is his. The railing where you met is gone, and so is the tree in the local park. Your home under a rock is gone, and his home of symmetrical spires is gone, too. It wrenches his heart to think about, but it’s something he’ll have to accept. 

Noctis thinks he’s left all his tears behind on his pillow, but with hydration, the body forms more and replaces the lost. His shirt knows this to be true. The others don’t bother him.

  
  


Lestallum. It’s huge, it’s hot, and it’s jam-packed with people. They’re here on a return trip from the cold, but all Noctis can think is that your family lives here, too. Even the distracting feeling of the new, freezing weapon in his arsenal cannot tune out the weight of the time. It feels like it’s been months, and with all the camping and days lost in counting, maybe it has.

He almost walks by it in his daze, that peculiar sight in the corner of his eye. He glances over, does a double take, and freezes. His heart clenches at the familiar sight.

The railing, like everything in Lestallum, looks a little too hot to touch for any prolonged period of time. That doesn’t deter you. Just like before, you’re doing a handstand, facing away from him. The others stare in confusion, but Noctis stares in relief. He doesn’t approach you, not yet. 

He waits.

You teeter, then regain your balance. Arms bend, your body follows, your feet touch the ground. Your spine straightens, you’re facing him.

Noctis is smiling already. Once he makes eye contact, he’s not startled by the smile that brightens your face considerably.

“Hey there, stranger.” And he finally feels like the old friend you’re greeting.

You hop over the railing instead of going around it, and Noctis is happy that the fall didn’t change you. He strides forward and juts his hand out once he’s close enough to you, but you shatter the mirror by pulling him into a hug. It’s short and a smidge awkward, but you’re both too happy to care.

There’s a cough behind him. Noctis separates from you and turns. The others look apprehensive at best, fidgeting awkwardly in their boots as they watch, and Noctis trades a look with you. You grin back.

“We have a lot of storytelling to do.” And it’s storytelling and not explaining, because that’s what these memories are -- stories, and not explanations. Noctis can’t agree more.


End file.
